A third-grade student at Hillcrest Elementary School who wanted to invite a few friends to a church event, but was told by school officials that he couldn't, now is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the Nederland school district.

According to the lawsuit, filed in a federal court on April 3, Metcalf contacted his son's teacher in December to see if it would be all right for his son to invite his school friends to an Aware Workers are Not Ashamed meeting at Hillcrest Baptist Church in Nederland.

The boy intended to only distribute invitations to two classmates but was told by his teacher that school policy required that he invite everyone in the class so that "no student feels left out or excluded," according to the lawsuit.

Metcalf's son complied with the teacher's request and created 18 handwritten invitations for all of his classmates, but when he showed up with the invitations, he was told he could not distribute them, according to the lawsuit.